MLS: Crew defender is seeing his work pay off on offense

After Josh Williams' second goal of the season helped the Crew to a road win against D.C. United last weekend, goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum could not resist poking some fun at his teammate.

Adam Jardy, The Columbus Dispatch

After Josh Williams’ second goal of the season helped the Crew to a road win against D.C. United last weekend, goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum could not resist poking some fun at his teammate.

“If he would have converted some of those goals last year, we would have made the playoffs,” Gruenebaum deadpanned yesterday. “It’s his fault we didn’t make the playoffs.”

Like all good jokes, Gruenebaum’s has a nugget of truth. Last year’s Crew team finished one point behind Houston for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, and an extra goal here or there could have made a difference in the standings.Although he is a defender — Williams primarily played left back last season before switching to right back — no player was more consistently hard-pressed to score than the Copley, Ohio, native.

In his third year with the Crew, Williams emerged as a key player after making his Major League Soccer debut and playing in 30 games in 2012. He also finished with one goal but came up short on a variety of chances.

There was the time a teammate was wrongly called offside to negate a Williams goal. There was the bicycle kick that somehow was saved at the last second by the goalkeeper. Then there was the game against Chicago in which he was twice denied by goalkeeper Sean Johnson in a 2-1 road loss that particularly rankled Williams.

“I flicked one back post that Johnson made an unreal save, and I had a volley that was pretty much point-blank as hard as I could hit it and somehow he got his hand up,” he said. “That’s when I was like, ‘OK, this is ridiculous. I need to find a way to start praying to the soccer gods or something.’?”

Those prayers are starting to be answered. Williams is the only Crew player with more than one goal this season.

“He was in the right places at the right times and just wasn’t able to drop one,” Crew technical director Brian Bliss said. “Now they’re falling for him. It was only a matter of time.”

It’s not just the goals Williams scores that benefit the offense. When Williams and fellow outside back Tyson Wahl make attacking runs along the edges of the field, they create more space in which Federico Higuain can operate and set up other players for chances. In addition, it allows the likes of outside midfielders Eddie Gaven and Ben Speas to cut inside and create scoring chances.

Although the offensive production has been a bonus for the Crew, Williams said his primary task lies with preventing goals rather than scoring them.

“Right now there’s a lot of light shining on the offense but I think my defense has been lacking,” he said. “Right now even though I’m helping out offensively, I can always improve defensively.”